I am thankful

I don't enjoy it when time is a whirlwind. I don't love to be busy and I especially don't love the sense of pettiness, the feeling that my life has become too small-focused and my heart has forgotten God, that sometimes comes when life is a rush. It seems too soon to be standing in the dusk of the year already, wondering where the time went, and wondering if I can even remember how I spent my minutes or my hours or my days as they whirled on by.

But I'm thankful that it's here, in the dusk of the year, that time stops for just a breath and I can look heavenward and just give thanks.

I'm not the best at thankful-lists. One year, I kept an ongoing list in a tiny Moleskine notebook, every day writing at least one thing (usually a half-dozen or more) that I was thankful for that day, and it did revolutionize my perspective in a way I didn't expect. I recommend trying it, if you never have. But as for Thanksgiving week, as for writing a blog post on the topic, as for trying to put my thanksgiving to prayer, a list seems almost trite - I feel far more in need of thankfulness as a whole attitude, a change in my posture before God.

I feel more in need of the pause for breath itself that gives me the opportunity to say "I am thankful."

Because I am thankful - oh, so thankful, and so blessed. But I think I'm the one who needs to be reminded of that sometimes, far more than God does.

I am thankful.

And I want to keep this posture of thankfulness, this willingness to slow down and remember my God, as time flies forward toward Christmas.

Would you like to join me?

I know it's a busy season, scrambling to get everything done before night's curtain falls on the year 2017. I know time is a whirlwind and there are so many small-but-important things to do. But maybe we can bow our hearts together each day for just long enough to breathe and to remember: We are thankful.

I've put together a small set of devotions to correspond to the first twenty-five days of December. Each one is a short study on one of the Biblical names of Jesus, and includes a selection of Scriptures to read. I'll be sending these out each day by email starting on December 1, so if you'd like to be on the list, just drop your email address in the box below.

Because we are thankful - and we need to remember that.